Earlier this week it was reported that the White House considered a last-minute taxpayer bailout of Solyndra, the failed solar panel maker that received a $529 million loan guarantee. One of the more interesting aspects of that deal—which would have had taxpayers purchasing as much as 40 percent of the company—was that it was allegedly recommended by Wall Street firm Lazard Ltd. According to the Associated Press:

Well, now we know the reason for the Friday night news dump. When the Obama administration finally announced that they would be launching an independent review of Department of Energy loan guarantees, they were likely trying to get out ahead of this:

As failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra rides through the investigative ringer in Congress, revelations of another politically-connected company that received what appears to be a less-than-virtuous $1.2 billion loan guarantee are surfacing.

The company, SunPower, received its $1.2 billion loan guarantee in September, immediately before the program’s deadline.

Sometimes in politics appearing guilty can have more consequences that actually being guilty (though the two frequently are related). And this latest development in the Solyndra scandal certainly looks bad:

The Los Angeles Timesopened up a new front in the Solyndra scandal on Friday (and there are too many fronts to count at this point), reporting that Steve Spinner, another prominent Obama donor, served as a top official in the Energy Department program that made the half-billion dollar loan to the now bankrupt solar panel maker. In Spinner's defense, he did recuse himself from the decision to grant the loan—because his wife works at a law firm that represented Solyndra.

Two big stories are out tonight on the blossoming scandal involving failed solar panel company and stimulus funds recipient Solyndra. First, the Washington Post reports that the White House pressured the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to speed up the approval process for Solyndra's $535 million loan:

I’m not a movie critic and I read Atlas Shrugged decades ago when I was in the Army. So it wasn’t exactly fresh in my mind when I attended a special screening in Washington this week of the film version of the novel by Ayn Rand. I had low expectations. But it turns out to be a terrific movie.

First Feingold, now The Daily Show goes after General Electric

Uh oh. First, Russ Feingold came out swinging at General Electric for not paying any taxes and now The Daily Show tears into NBC for not covering the scandal involving their parent country. It seems that Obama's favorite CEO is officially in hot water on the left:

Left and right unite: strike a blow against crony capitalism.

Russ Feingold speaks truth to power. He calls out one aspect of the Obama administration’s crony-capitalist, big-government-corporatist, welfare-state liberalism—the relationship between the Obama White House and its favorite pet CEO, GE’s Jeffrey Immelt. Russ has a petition—see below—calling on Immelt to resign from, or for Obama to fire Immelt from, his position as chair of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Sign the petition. And why not go further? Get rid of the Council, period. Surely Russ and his fellow progressives would agree on that too.